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IRL: Dixon takes pole in Texas

By Andy Darley

Qualifying at the Texas Motor Speedway mirrored the big picture of the season so far: Scott Dixon came out on top, and only Helio Castroneves was close to challenging him.

The New Zealander, who leads the championship from Castroneves, took pole for the Bombardier Learjet 550k with a speed of 214.878mph.

The Brazilian was just 0.0462s behind on cumulative time across the four qualifying laps, with Ryan Briscoe and Hideki Mutoh some way back in third and fourth.

Dixon’s team-mate Dan Wheldon qualified 11th in the Target Chip Ganassi Racing spare car after wrecking his main car and damaging his ankle in a crash during practice.

He praised his team for their work in setting up the new car and said his foot was no worse than sore: “It’s just the right side of it, it smashed against the tub. It’s fine; I just can’t put much weight on it. That was probably the biggest hit I’ve had – the first part of it hurt the most, I wasn’t expecting it. The Polaroid car was really strong. It’s disappointing.”

Another driver whose crew faced a battle to set their car up properly was Darren Manning at A.J. Foyt Enterprises, who qualified 17th. He said: “We lost a fuel pump yesterday, so we didn’t get any practice to speak of, and today we got the car handling right, but we missed slightly on the gears, so the first two laps hurt our overall speed.”

Like most drivers, he is expecting the race to be one long sprint that will reward good set-ups and raw speed over starting position. He said: “This is one race where it really doesn’t matter where you qualify. I think we have a good car for the race so I’m happy about that.”

The Newman/Haas/Lanigan pairing of Graham Rahal and Justin Wilson had a disappointing qualifying session in their team’s Texas Motor Speedway debut, ending up 18th and 23rd respectively.

Wilson said: “We were flat out and trying to run the line of least resistance. I’m a little bit disappointed; I was hoping the McDonald’s car would be a little bit quicker than that but we have proven on many occasions that we are much better in the race than we are in qualifying so hopefully we will do better tomorrow.”

He said he could well understand why CART had cancelled a race there because the drivers were suffering from vertigo and dizziness while running at 240mph on the 24 degree banking: “I can’t imagine going 20 mph faster than what we’re doing now. It’s already crazy fast.

“I can understand why they were passing out. You can definitely feel the strains and the G-forces compressing in. It’s different to the other tracks we’ve raced on, where the Gs are lateral. You start to feel the effect.”

Dixon hadn’t expected to run so strongly after the car had dipped in performance during practice: “It’s shocking, to be honest. I’m very happy we came away with the pole, especially with how hard the Target team works, but I’m still shocked. I think tomorrow is going to be straight-out speed, especially when it comes down to the final 40 or 50 laps.”

Castroneves rued the missed opportunity: “We had one lap that was fast, but we needed four laps and unfortunately we weren’t able to do that. I wish we could go back to the old way we used to qualify, but it is what it is.”

Roth Racing’s decision to team up with John Andretti looks increasingly sound – even if benching Jay Howard to make room for him still doesn’t – as the veteran qualified a career-best seventh. He said: “We’ve been fast since we’ve unloaded at Texas. I’m really proud of the team’s hard work.”

Qualifying results for the Bombardier Learjet 550k

Pos

Driver

Team

Time

1.

Scott Dixon

Target Chip Ganassi Racing

214.878mph

2.

Helio Castroneves

Team Penske

214.777mph

3.

Ryan Briscoe

Team Penske

213.927mph

4.

Hideki Mutoh

Andretti Green Racing

213.485mph

5.

Danica Patrick

Andretti Green Racing

213.238mph

6.

Tomas Scheckter

Luczo Dragon Racing

213.212mph

7.

John Andretti

Roth Racing

212.844mph

8.

Will Power

KV Racing Technology

212.595mph

9.

Vitor Meira

Panther Racing

212.501mph

10.

Ryan Hunter-Reay

Rahal Letterman Racing

212.482mph

11.

Dan Wheldon

Target Chip Ganassi Racing

212.474mph

12.

Ed Carpenter

Vision Racing

212.247mph

13.

Tony Kanaan

Andretti Green Racing

212.152mph

14.

Marco Andretti

Andretti Green Racing

211.974mph

15.

AJ Foyt IV

Vision Racing

211.622mph

16.

Oriol Servia

KV Racing Technology

211.333mph

17.

Darren Manning

A.J. Foyt Enterprises

211.277mph

18.

Graham Rahal

Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing

211.128mph

19.

Marty Roth

Roth Racing

211.122mph

20.

Enrique Bernoldi

Conquest Racing

210.731mph

21.

Jaime Camara

Conquest Racing

210.582mph

22.

Mario Moraes

Dale Coyne Racing

210.254mph

23.

Justin Wilson

Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing

210.160mph

24.

Mario Dominguez

Pacific Coast Motorsports

210.059mph

25.

Buddy Rice

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing

209.622mph

26.

Bruno Junqueira

Dale Coyne Racing

209.572mph

27.

Milka Duno

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing

209.420mph

28.

EJ Viso

HVM Racing

209.313mph

Author: Andy Darley. Ex-journalist, fan of Mark Webber and anyone who ever drove or tested for Minardi and didn't say rude things about the team afterwards. Owns a Triumph Spitfire and hopes that, one day, it'll be on the road again.
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